What makes Annandale Water Service Station an unlikely tourist destination?

Before you lies a lake which, depending upon the time of year, has many species of wildfowl including mute swans, Canadian geese, and mallards which bask in the sun from their island paradise in the centre of the lake.

The noise of the motorway is muted by trees to your left and the gentle flow of water across the lake. Beyond this tranquil refuge rolling green fields and high mountains frame your view. 

This terrain formed approximately 500 million years ago when sediment was laid down at the bottom of the Iapetus Ocean. This was a prehistoric sea which was created and later destroyed by continental plates shifting, in the same way they cause earthquakes today.

This sediment was then pushed upwards 450 million years ago during a period of mountain building known as the Caledonian Orogeny.  

It is because of this topography that the motorway was constructed here.

The height of the surrounding mountains made it difficult to build routes to link England’s northwest with Scotland. During the 19th century Carlisle needed better connections with the ever expanding Glasgow and London. Most valleys were too steep to build road and rail routes.

However, look at the slowly rising and gently undulating hills around you. The landscape is much less severe, and therefore the road we stand next to today was able to be built.

This dip in the landscape has not only enabled a motorway - two roads run parallel to the west and east of it and the West Coast Mainline rail route also weaves its way through the valley floor. By contrast, the surrounding hillsides are so challenging that the only road actually transcending the Southern Uplands is 30km from here!

The River Annan that carves its way through the valley floor also plays its part in making this spot a unique attraction.  

While the river is now out of view, it is likely to have once run through where Annandale Water is now situated. As the Annan flowed south from its source on top of the Southern Uplands towards the Solway Firth in southwest Scotland, it would have weaved back and forth as it carved out its route.

It is thought that bend in the river (called a ‘meander’) became very curved here. Eventually the neck of the meander became narrower and the river cut through it, marooning the bend. This feature is known as an 'oxbow lake'. The island would have formed when sediment built up on the inside of the old meander, as the river lost energy and deposited its load. 

So, without prehistoric seas, ancient mountain-building, and rivers weaving their way through the landscape, the motorway may well have been constructed elsewhere, hiding this site from public view.

Instead, the main link between Glasgow and London opens a secret world of tranquillity and calm behind an unassuming exterior.

Not just a stop-off, but a destination.